In social network games, rankings of competing players (e.g., see Patent Literature 1) are an important factor that significantly contributes to the fun of the games.
Meanwhile, recently, in order to share game experience among players on terminals such as smartphones, a large amount of video data created by recording game screens during play has been uploaded on the Internet (e.g., see Patent Literatures 2 and 3). An environment for this purpose is being established, and many development tools for recording such video data are being provided. It is predicted that many games incorporating toolkits that support creation of play-videos will appear in the future.
Generally, video data generated by recording game screens during play are often called “play-videos.”
In addition to such video data, there is also another type of video data, which shows the proceedings of a game with a player himself or herself included in the captured video. Generally, such video data is called “Let's Play”.
Hereinafter, however, these types of video data, including “Let's Play,” will be collectively referred to as “play-videos.”
That is, in this specification, “play-videos” are a broad concept meaning images representing the proceedings of a predetermined game.